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Mosquitoes can smell malaria inside your blood

As if we needed another reason to be freaked out by mosquitos, those tiny disease spreading vampires that can make a camping trip in Florida a nightmare.

Well, now scientists say the insects can smell inside your blood. It’s why people infected with malaria attract more mosquitoes than those not infected.

Scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis reported last week in the journal mBio releases odors that lure mosquitoes, scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

And want to be grossed out even more?

The malaria parasite makes these odors in a way similar to the way flowers make their sweet fragrance. “You can basically think of a malaria parasite as a plant in the dark,” says molecular microbiologist Audrey Odom, who led the study.

The malaria parasite has a special compartment in its single cell that’s similar to chloroplasts in plants. But malaria’s compartment doesn’t photosynthesize light to make sugars. Instead it manufactures building blocks for the parasite’s cell.

Some of these building blocks, Odom and her team found, are aromatic. They smell sweet to a mosquito, just like a flower does.

Odom hopes the findings will help scientists develop a breathalyzer test for malaria, which could make it easier and less expensive to test people for the disease.